


serve

by liadan14



Series: harlequin au [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Basically a Romance Novel in 2K, Feudal AU, First Time, Flaming hot bullshit historically speaking, Kink Meme, Lord Joe, M/M, Serf Nicky, Virgin!Nicky, bottom!Joe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:13:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26343934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liadan14/pseuds/liadan14
Summary: “Hmm,” Yusuf hums, and bends to lick a trail of juice that dripped down along Nicky’s collarbone. “And what did you envision?”Nicky has to take a deep breath to allow his faculties to return enough to answer. “My lo—Yusuf, I had imagined—that is, to be used for your pleasure would have been…beyond anything I had hoped for, but this…”Yusuf chuckles and sets his tray of fruit aside. “An interesting proposition,” he says, leaning on his elbow to stare down at Nicky. “But in all honesty, within my bedchambers, I prefer to be the one doing the serving.”(AKA, a romance novel in 2k in response to a kink meme prompt)
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: harlequin au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915123
Comments: 41
Kudos: 536





	serve

Nicky doesn’t really know how he got here. A moment of insanity, perhaps. Or maybe this is just a fever-dream, a comforting illusion to help him in his dying moments. It certainly can’t be real.

The whisper of velvet curtains sliding aside alerts him to the fact that, however unreal his situation is, he still has to deal with it. His lord – Yusuf, he is supposed to say Yusuf, now – slides the curtain shut behind himself, tray of food balanced in one hand.

Nicky makes to rise from the bed and help him, but Yusuf stays him with a raised hand and an “Ah-ah-ah!”

Nicky frowns. “I should be helping you, my l—”

Yusuf gives him a disapproving look and Nicky cowers. “Yusuf,” he corrects.

He has no words for how broadly Yusuf beams when he gets it right, when he ignores years of training and protocol and calls the man currently holding out a grape for Nicky to eat from his fingers by his first name. As if he were a dog, receiving treats from his master for learning a new trick. And yet, that would be a more apt description of their true stations than this, Nicky lounging on Yusuf’s magnificently large, soft bed in a silk robe as he is fed delicate morsels.

“Is this what you envisioned?” Yusuf asks, eyes crinkling in the corners as he offers Nicky a bite of pear. “When you asked for a night with me?”

Nicky flushes all over.

In truth, he hadn’t envisioned much of anything at all. He had dreamed, in his most audacious moments, what it might be like to kiss Yusuf – a young man’s fantasies, brought on by hero-worship no doubt, he had always thought. After all, Yusuf had purchased the land his family worked off of the previous lord, a drunk and a skinflint, when he was no more than a boy, albeit an obscenely wealthy and powerful boy. He had restored the entire area to prosperity, and he had done it so generously that Nicky had not known a hungry winter since he had called Yusuf his lord.

Nicky hadn’t even expected to ever meet Yusuf. He’d expected to hand over his yearly due in grain and produce to the castle treasurer and return to his family, as he had always done before, ever since his own father’s knees had become too old to do it himself. But Nicky had been a studious child, when he could be spared from his work, and he had caught a snatch or two of Latin from the visiting monks – enough to know they were not simply curious how a Muslim lord could run such a prosperous kingdom. Enough to know they planned to ransom Yusuf’s sister in exchange for a Genoa once again free of Islam. Nicky had thought like them, once, many years ago. Before he had understood that it was Muslim lord would not force him to convert, that it was a Muslim lord who would not allow him to starve.

He had alerted the treasurer before the man could so much as say one word. 

The treasurer had dragged him immediately before Yusuf, and Nicky had been unable to look his lord in the eye, instead muttering towards the floor what he had heard and how he had heard it. It was only Yusuf’s sword-calloused, gentle fingers under his chin, lifting his gaze, that had forced him to confirm his story while looking straight at Yusuf.

When all was said and done and the men had been evicted from Yusuf’s court, penniless and lacking in anything to ransom, Yusuf had returned to the chamber in which Nicky had been told to wait and had offered him anything he might desire in payment for his service.

Haltingly, awkwardly, Nicky had assured him his thanks were payment enough, but Yusuf had been so insistent. Nicky had denied any wish again and again, had assured Yusuf that his continued dominion of the area was all Nicky could wish for, but Yusuf had been unmoved. At last, when Yusuf had not allowed him to so much as leave the room without stating some desire he could fulfil, it had burst out of Nicky uncontrollably—

“The only thing I could wish for, my lord, is something you could never grant.”

And because Nicky was a fool, and because Yusuf’s eyes were soft and liquid when looked at Nicky and demanded to know what it was he fell so short of being able to provide, Nicky had answered.

“You, my lord,” he had said, and then had seen himself in his mind’s eye, hanged for disobedience, for sodomy, for pure, unbridled idiocy.

Except Yusuf had not reached for his sword.

He had not called for guards. He had turned his head a little to the side, said “ _Oh_ ,” in such a tone it made Nicky’s knees weak, and then smiled broadly. “I think we can arrange that,” he had said, and Nicky felt sure his heart would simply stop beating.

“I only mean,” Nicky said very quickly, without any idea what he had, in fact, meant, “I only mean that if you were so gracious as to—to give me one night with you. Just one. I could have no other wish on this Earth. My lord.”

“One night?” Yusuf asked, sounding strangely disappointed. “That is all you want of me? When you could have anything?”

“ _Please_ ,” Nicky had said. “One night would be more than I could ever deserve.”

Yusuf had given him a look, had said, “You could ask anything of me, Nicolò, and I would give it, but if you only want one night, that is what you shall receive.”

In balance, this only does so much to explain how Nicky is where he is now, splayed out on Yusuf’s fine bed and licking pear juice from his liege lord’s fingers. He had been bathed and scrubbed more furiously than he can remember having been before at the hands of a deeply amused chambermaid who had refused to speak more than two words to him before depositing him on this very bed, and now here is Yusuf, with him, his curly hair still damp from his own bath, slices of the fruit Nicky’s family grows for his table in his hands and sin in his eyes. How this could be reality escapes Nicky.

Still, he knows one thing.

“This is not at all what I envisioned,” he says hoarsely.

“Hmm,” Yusuf hums, and bends to lick a trail of juice that dripped down along Nicky’s collarbone. “And what did you envision?”

Nicky has to take a deep breath to allow his faculties to return enough to answer. “My lo—Yusuf, I had imagined—that is, to be used for your pleasure would have been…beyond anything I had hoped for, but this…”

Yusuf chuckles and sets his tray of fruit aside. “An interesting proposition,” he says, leaning on his elbow to stare down at Nicky. “But in all honesty, within my bedchambers, I prefer to be the one doing the serving.”

He has the audacity to wink before he returns his mouth to Nicky’s collarbone.

It is at roughly this point that Nicky is forced to choose between his higher brain function and his sanity, only to discover that perhaps neither is intact when Yusuf’s mouth trails further down to tongue softly at his nipple.

His head arches back on a cry.

Yusuf looks up at him, a wicked glint in his eye, and reaches out to place Nicky’s hand on his beautiful, beautiful hair, even as he sinks further down to reach eye level with Nicky’s embarrassingly firm arousal. 

“Oh, Nicolò,” Yusuf sighs, and then his mouth—

Then his mouth.

It is without Nicky’s conscious consent that his hand tightens in Yusuf’s hair, but when it does, Yusuf moans around his mouthful and Nicky has to bite his lip to hold back a sob.

“Don’t hold back,” Yusuf tells him, briefly – achingly, awfully – removing his mouth from its task. “This is your night, Nicolò, but if you’d grant me a request in return, I want to hear you.”

How Nicolò could possibly not make noise when Yusuf’s mouth sinks back down around his cock, hot and plush and wet and perfect, when Yusuf presses Nicolò’s hand more firmly to his head, asking wordlessly to be pressed tight to Nicolò’s hipbone as he destroys Nicolò’s world with his tongue, is a mystery for the ages.

He runs the gamut, over the course of the next few minutes. He groans deep in his chest when Yusuf takes him deep, he whines when Yusuf pulls back to tongue at the head, he sobs when Yusuf presses fluttering kisses against the thick vein on the underside. He begs, when Yusuf teases at the head, losing the ability to differentiate between “Yusuf” and “my lord” as Yusuf’s tongue dips into his foreskin and strokes around the most sensitive parts of his flesh. 

He cries out, far too loudly, when Yusuf swallows him all the way down, teasing giving way to heady pressure and steady suck-and-release, up and down the length of Nicky’s shaft.

“Yusuf—Yusuf, I’m going to,” he gasps out, “you’ll make me—”

Yusuf moans around him again and Nicky’s hips try and fail to surge within his tight grip as he falls through pleasure no man has a right to feel, toes curling and legs twisting when he cannot move, cannot thrust, can find no outlet for such great pleasure but to feel every devastating second of it until he thinks he’s been turned inside out, been remade, been sucked dry.

When Yusuf crawls up the bed to lay beside him once more, his lips are puffy and cherry-red and his eyes are hazy with arousal. 

“Nicolò,” he says in all seriousness, “you are a treasure. Tell me I was the first to do that.”

“You were,” Nicky says, still panting and unable to think of any reason why he should lie. “You were, you will be the only, nothing could compare to that.”

Yusuf’s lips twitch it might become a smile. “I still have all night,” he says, serious despite his kind eyes. “Let me try.”

“But you—” Nicky begins, reaching clumsily for Yusuf, his knuckles grazing Yusuf’s hardness.

With a hiss, Yusuf angles his hips away. “Don’t distract me,” he says, batting Nicky’s hands away. “You said you wanted me to use you for my pleasure, no?”

“Yes,” Nicky breathes, unable to think of anything he would enjoy more, now, boneless and used-up as he is.

“Well, then,” Yusuf says, pressing a kiss to Nicky’s knuckles. 

He leaves the bed, then, and Nicky mourns his absence even as he cannot stop himself from watching the sway of Yusuf’s hips. He is so distracted by it, in fact, that he entirely misses Yusuf’s mission in rising from the bed in the first place until he returns with a pot of oil in one hand and a grape in the other that he rests gently at Nicky’s lips.

“Beautiful,” he whispers when Nicky takes the grape in his mouth and whispers a kiss against Yusuf’s fingers. 

He dips down, then, and kisses Nicky.

Kissing is perhaps the only bedroom activity Nicky has engaged in before, but he never expected to be kissed by Yusuf. Not when he has been given so much else already. A kiss – a kiss is a greater honor than he could ever deserve.

But Yusuf doesn’t seem to care about that, crowding closer and resting a knee either side of Nicky’s hips as he kisses and kisses and kisses Nicky, until Nicky is tasting himself on Joe’s tongue, salty and bitter, until Joe is rolling his hips on top of Nicky to grind himself against Nicky’s stomach.

Nicky pulls away with a gasp and is struck dumb by Yusuf, flushed red, eyes half-lidded, hard and wanting and astride him.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, and Yusuf’s flush intensifies.

“You will be the death of me,” Yusuf mutters, only half-joking as he presses the oil in Nicky’s hands. “Prepare me before I’m too far gone to enjoy this.”

Nicky wets his hand liberally with oil before reaching for Joe, but he only gets a moment to wrap his hand around Joe’s length – hot and throbbing and also beautiful – before Joe is grabbing at his hand and dragging it away, around, behind, to rest against his hole.

“What—” Nicky asks. “No. Surely you can’t—”

“Do not,” Yusuf tells him, “presume to tell me what I can and can’t, Nicolò. I _want_ you. I want you to _take_ me until I’m all you can think about when you take yourself in hand, until I’m all you’ll ever want, I want you take me until I’m delirious and coming on your cock, and Nicolò?” He rests his fingers under Nicky’s chin again, just like he did before, when he had first spoken to Nicky. “You will give me what I want.”

Nicky is helpless to do anything but obey.

He fumbles his way through the preparation, helped along by Yusuf’s gasps and pleas and instructions, until Yusuf is open and wet and throbbing around his fingers and Yusuf’s teeth are clenched against the pleasure, his fist tight around the base of his cock.

Nicky is more than desperate again, himself, when Yusuf reaches behind himself to angle Nicky’s cock up so he can sink down upon it.

Nicky has been sure, since Yusuf first set his fingers to Nicky’s lips and fed him fruit, that he could never stand to be touched by another, not after this magical, perfect night, but the feel of Yusuf, hot and tight around him, makes it painfully evident. This night will be all Nicky will ever have, and it will sustain him for the rest of his life to know that once, just once, he felt Yusuf around his cock, that Yusuf moaned out little, broken noises as he settled, balanced on Nicky’s lap, and fucked himself on Nicky’s cock.

Unable to stop himself, Nicky thrusts up, and Yusuf moans.

He thrusts up again just as Yusuf grinds down and they both do.

It is an ungainly process, but it is so desperate, so hot, so necessary, that Nicky cannot stop himself from grinding up and up and up, chasing into that pleasure, chasing every sound that Yusuf makes.

Yusuf’s hand is still clenched tight around the base of his cock, as if Nicky inside him is enough to make him go off, and Nicky is delirious on the thought.

“Nicky,” Yusuf gasps. “Nicky, turn us over. Take me.”

Nicky grasps Yusuf under his thighs, twists, unaware he possessed the grace to this, unaware he was capable of any of this, and then he pistons his hips in and in and in as if possessed. He hitches Yusuf’s thighs up higher and on the next thrust in, Yusuf wails. He lets go of his cock to grasp at the pillows beneath him.

“Nicky,” he gasps, “Nicky, please.”

“Anything,” Nicky groans, head resting on Yusuf’s collarbone. “Anything, anything.”

“Be mine,” Yusuf says, even as he tightens down around Nicky and comes in a series of ecstatic noises, going vise-tight around Nicky. “Stay mine.”

“Yes,” Nicky agrees, even as he comes so hard his eyes cross. “Yours.”

-

When Nicky wakes up, it is morning, and he is wrapped tight in Yusuf’s embrace. He has never been so warm in his life.

He stirs slowly, unwilling to part from his one perfect night.

“Nicolò,” Yusuf says from behind him, voice slow with sleep and rough with other things that Nicky flushes to think about now. “I will not hold a man to a promise he made under duress.”

“A promise?” Nicky asks.

“That you would be mine,” Yusuf says. “But if you would ask me—if you would let me—”

“Let me be yours,” Nicky says, instantly. “I have always been yours.”

“Yes,” Yusuf says, kissing behind his ear, on his cheek, on his mouth. “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> look I got nothing guys this happened in like an hour and a half
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://bewires.tumblr.com)


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